Saudi beggar Eisha, dies leaving million-dollar fortune behind

Jeddah:  Eisha, a 100 year old woman in Saudi Arabia, who spent decades begging on the streets, has died leaving behind a secret fortune of gold coins, jewellery and a real estate portfolio worth a whopping USD 10,66,580.

The blind woman had begged for 50 years on the streets of Jeddah, before she suddenly died at her home, leaving behind a sizable fortune.

Known as Eisha, the beggar had amassed a fortune valued at Saudi Riyal 3 million (USD 799,935), including four buildings in the Al-Balad district of Jeddah, and an additional Saudi Riyal 1 million (USD 266,645) in jewels and gold coins.
 

Ahmed Al-Saeedi, who grew up with Eisha, said she did not have any relatives except her mother and sister, who were both beggars, 'Saudi Gazette' reported.

Al-Saeedi claimed that Eisha had given him her will, which stipulates that all her money and property should be distributed among the poor. Al-Saeedi said he had informed the authorities, but there was no response.

He said Eisha's wealth had increased after her mother and sister died and she inherited their property. Al-Saeedi said that when he discovered Eisha was a millionaire he advised her to give up begging, but she refused to do so saying that she was preparing for hard times.

Several families that live in Eisha's properties claim the old woman never charged them rent. It is not known if they will now be evicted.

ISI Chief Told CIA, 'Rogue' ISI Elements Were Involved in Mumbai Attacks

Washington, Sept 27 : Less than a month after the Mumbai attacks, Pakistan's ISI  chief Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha had admitted before the CIA that the terror strikes had ISI links but claimed it was not an "authorised" operation and carried out by "rogue" elements, according to a new book. 

However, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) later received reliable intelligence that the ISI was directly involved in the training for Mumbai, says the book entitled 'Obama's War' written by investigative American journalist Bob Woodward. 

According to the book, the then President George W Bush during his meetings with his top aides had said that the terrorist attack on Mumbai was just like 9/11. 

"President Bush called his national security team into the Oval Office as Mumbai sorted through the blood and rubble. You guys get planning and do what you have to do to prevent a war between Pakistan and India, Bush told his aides. The last thing we need right now is a war between two nuclear-power states," Woodward says in his book which hit the stands today. 

Giving an insight into the thinking and actions of the Bush Administration during and immediately after the Mumbai attacks, Woodward writes that an "upset Bush asked his aides about contingency plans for dealing with Pakistan," given his policy of "zero tolerance" for terrorists and their enablers. "This is like 9/11, he (Bush) said," Woodward wrote. "The United States military did not have 'war' plans for an invasion of Pakistan. Instead, it had and continues to have one of the most sensitive and secret of all military contingencies, what military officials call a 'retribution' plan in the event of another 9/11-like attack on the US by terrorists based in Pakistan," the book says. 

Under this plan, the US would bomb or attack every known al-Qaeda compound or training camp in the US intelligence database. "Some locations might be outdated, but there would be no concern, under the plan, for who might be living there now. The attribution plan called for a brutal punishing attack on at least 150 or more associated camps," Woodward says. 

According to Woodward, within 48 hours of the Mumbai attack, the then CIA Director Mike Hayden contacted Pakistan Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani. "CIA intelligence showed no direct ISI links, Hayden told him. These are former people who are no longer employees of the Pakistani government," he wrote. 

"Bush informed the Indians himself. He called Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, with whom he had a strong personal relationship. My intelligence shows that the new Pakistani government is not involved, Bush said. It looked like a war had been averted for the moment," Woodward writes. 

"In a call to Lieutenant General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the head of the Pakistani ISI, Hayden said, "We've got to get to the bottom of this. This is a big deal'," the book says. He urged Pasha to come clean and disclose all. 

On the day after Christmas, Pasha flew to the United States, where he briefed Hayden at CIA headquarters, the author writes.  "Pasha admitted that the planners of the Mumbai attacks at least two retired Pakistani Army officers   had ISI links, but this had not been an authorised ISI operation. It was rogue. There may have been people associated with my organisation who were associated with this," Pasha said. "That's different from authority, direction and control," Pasha is quoted as saying by Woodward. 

According to Woodward, Pasha provided details that fit with the picture developed by US intelligence. "Hayden told Bush he was convinced it was not an official Pakistani-sponsored attack, but it highlighted the problem of the sanctuaries in Pakistan. The ease of the planning and execution, the low cost, and the alarming sophistication of the communications system that LeT had used were all troubling," he said. 

The author says that the Mumbai terrorists spoke with handlers back in Pakistan with satellite phones that went through a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service in New Jersey, making the calls difficult, if not impossible to trace and routed them in a way that also concealed the locations of those talking. 

"The FBI was horrified by the low-cost, high-tech operation that had paralysed Mumbai. American cities were just as vulnerable. A senior FBI official responsible for thwarting similar attacks in the United States said, Mumbai changed everything," the book says. 

In his book, Woodward writes that the open secret is that LeT was created and continues to be funded by the Pakistani ISI. 

"The intelligence branch of the Pakistani military uses LeT to inflict pain and hardship on India, according to US intelligence. These gunmen had, quite possibly, committed an act of war," Woodward says. PTI 

[ Updated 27 Sep 2010, 23:06:24 ]

Indian CM Jayalalithaa, Sasikala summoned by court for income tax case

Chennai:  The Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Court, (Economic Offence-I) of  Tamilnaddu , Egmore has directed Tamilnaddu  chief minister J. Jayalalithaa and her close aide Sasikala, who were partners in erstwhile Sasi Enterprises, to appear before the court on April 3 in connection with case filed against the duo by income tax department, Chennai in 1996.

The income tax department alleged that they had not filed income tax returns during 1991-92 and 1992-93 for Sasi Enterprises.

The IT department also alleged that they committed offences punishable under provision of the Income Tax Act, 1961. Magistrate R. Dhakshinamurthy  observed that the case would be taken up on day to day basis from April 3 to complete the trial.

Tunisian secularist women rally to defend rights against Islamists

Friday, 04 November 2011

Tunisia’s secularist women are mobilizing to defend their western lifestyle after the Islamist Ennahda party swept the country's first free election and claimed almost all the seats won by women in the new assembly.
Groups of women are now lobbying the political parties to protect a pioneering 1956 law granting them full equality with men and to counter growing pressure from radical Muslims keen to push them back into traditional roles.
University lecturers in Tunis, women and men, staged a short strike on Thursday to protest against radicals who -- encouraged by Ennahda’s strong showing in the Oct. 23 poll -- have been harassing women teachers to dress more modestly.
About 500 women responded to calls on Facebook to protest in the capital's government quarter on Wednesday and were granted a short meeting with interim Prime Minister Beji Caid Essebsi to present their demands.
“We’re here to denounce all forms of extremism and bans on women's liberties,” said one of the protesters, Madiha Bel Haj. “We want a constitution that respects women’s rights and doesn’t roll back the advances we’ve made.”
The protests look set to continue even though the main parties, including Ennahda, have pledged to maintain the rights that have made Tunisia’s women among the freest in the Arab world.
Many secularist women, including urban professionals, say they do not believe these promises.
The core of their demands is an iron-clad defense of the Personal Status Code, a series of progressive laws brought in by independent Tunisia’s first president, Habib Bourguiba.
The Code banned polygamy and gave women equal rights in marriage and divorce. It was extended over the years to include a detailed list assuring women equal say in decisions about bringing up their children, once the prerogative of men.
“I’ve come to support the idea that the Personal Status Code and other women's rights should be written into the new constitution,” said Mounira, another protester at Wednesday’s rally in the government quarter.
Ennahda and the other main parties in the new assembly say they will strengthen the defense of human rights in the new constitution they are due to write over the coming year.
Samir Ben Amor, a leader in the second-placed Congress for the Republic party, said the assembly would probably include international human rights conventions in the constitution.
While there was a broad consensus among the parties to defend the Code, he said, no country would write such detailed legislation into its constitution.
“They shouldn’t escalate demands like that,” he said of the protesters.
The new assembly will be 22.6 percent female -- on par with the average level in Europe. But some secularist women say they are alarmed that most of the female members are Islamists.
Of the 49 women elected to the 217-seat assembly, 42 belong to Ennahda, the only party that closely followed the official election guidelines calling for parity on party lists.
Rachid Ghannouchi, the moderate Islamist who founded Ennahda in 1989, boasted that his party’s 90-member faction was almost equally balanced between men and women.
“The principle of equality is more equally applied in Ennahda than in the secular parties,” he told Reuters.
“These women will fight for their rights. The secularist women won’t monopolize the definition of women’s rights.”
The Islamic headscarf, which was banned from schools and public offices under former President Zine ElAbidine Ben Ali, has become a symbol of the different approaches the two sides take towards laws in the new system.
The ban on the headscarf has been dropped since the January revolution that swept Ben Ali from power. Secularist women want official guarantees they can't be forced to wear it, while Islamists want assurances they can wear it wherever they want.Alarabiya.

Women’s existence anti-Islamic?-Council of Islamic Ideology declares

MARCH 15, 2014 BY KHABARISTAN TODAY

Islamabad - Sharia Correspondent: The Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) concluded their 192nd meeting on Thursday with the ruling that women are un-Islamic and that their mere existence contradicted Sharia and the will of Allah. As the meeting concluded CII Chairman Maulana Muhammad Khan Shirani noted that women by existing defied the laws of nature, and to protect Islam and the Sharia women should be forced to stop existing as soon as possible. The announcement comes a couple of days after CII’s 191st meeting where they dubbed laws related to minimum marriage age to be un-Islamic.

A Tunisian demonstrator holds a sign during a protest against the Islamist Ennahda movement in Tunis. (Reuters)

After declaring women to be un-Islamic, Shirani explained that there were actually two kinds of women – haraam and makrooh. “We can divide all women in the world into two distinct categories: those who are haraam and those who are makrooh. Now the difference between haraam and makrooh is that the former is categorically forbidden while the latter is really really disliked,” Shirani said.

He further went on to explain how the women around the world can ensure that they get promoted to being makrooh, from just being downright haraam. “Any woman that exercises her will is haraam, absolutely haraam, and is conspiring against Islam and the Ummah,whereas those women who are totally subservient can reach the status of being makrooh. Such is the generosity of our ideology and such is the endeavour of Muslim men like us who are the true torchbearers of gender equality,” the CII chairman added.

Officials told Khabaristan Today that the council members deliberated over various historic references related to women and concluded that each woman is a source of fitna and a perpetual enemy of Islam. They also decided that by restricting them to their subordinate, bordering on slave status, the momineen and the mujahideen can ensure that Islam continues to be the religion of peace, prosperity and gender equality.

Responding to a question one of the officials said that international standards of gender equality should not be used if they contradict Islam or the constitution of Pakistan that had incorporated Islam and had given sovereignty to Allah. “We don’t believe in western ideals, and nothing that contradicts Islam should ever be paid heed. In any case by giving women the higher status of being makrooh, it’s us Muslims who have paved the way for true, Sharia compliant feminism,” the official said.

The CII meeting also advised the government that to protect Islam women’s right to breathe should also be taken away from them. “Whether a woman is allowed to breathe or not be left up to her husband or male guardian, and no woman under any circumstance whatsoever should be allowed to decide whether she can breathe or not,” Shirani said.

Bilawal announces Sukhbir’s concert to raise food for drought victims

Thar - Staff Report: Pakistan Peoples Party (Chairman) Bilawal Benazir Zulfikar Asif Ali Zardari Bhutto (short Bilawal Bhutto) has invited renowned pop singer to Thar for a concert to raise food for the drought victims, Khabaristan Today has learnt. Bilawal believes that Sukhbir’s show, which he dubbed the Thar Festival, will generate enough money to serve the hungry people in the region.

“You have no idea how much the situation in Thar is hurting me personally. The Sindh government is trying so hard to make sure that everyone in the province is happy, and yet we see such appalling pictures. I really feel like I might have to organise another Sindh Festival here,” Bilawal told Khabaristan Today.

He then went on to explain how inviting Sukhbir over for a concert will solve the hunger crisis in the region. “I guess I will have to make do with a mini Thar festival, since another Sindh Festival might not be possible right now. In any case we are inviting Sukhbir over for a concert and all the money generated from the concert would go straight to the relief fund dedicated to the Thar victims,” Bilawal added.

The PPP chairman further said that if concerts can make Imran Khan’s (the former cricketer, not the singer or the actor) Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaaf the second biggest party in the country, they can “sure as hell” make PPP the second biggest party in Sindh.

“Sure, we might be calling the shots in the province but everyone knows who the biggest party in Sindh is, I mean come on,” Bilawal reiterated adding that, “Sukhbir’s party might help us establish ourselves as the second biggest provincial political party and help solve the Thar crisis simultaneously.”

The PPP chairman then went on to do a bhangra dance on “Ishq Tera Tadpaay” exclusively for Khabaristan Today, forcing our camera man to resign unconditionally.

529 Paul Smith outlets open in Charsadda on the same day

Charsadda - Fashion Correspondent: In what was a historic day for fashion 529 Paul Smith outlets opened simultaneously in Charsadda on Tuesday, Khabaristan Today has learnt. Another surprising fact about these outlets was that the outlets only seemed to be dealing in Paul Smith’s latest offering, “Robert”. Even so, in a surprising turn of events the original version of the shoe that is being sold for around $600 worldwide, is being sold merely for Rs600 in these outlets.

We cannot seem to pinpoint the reason behind these bizarre happenings. But Paul Smith seems to have taken global and Pakistani fashion industry by storm this week. Robert seems to be here to stay, despite the fact that sales in Charsadda aren’t particularly high. Locals don’t see anything different in Robert as compared to what they have been wearing for generations.

“I didn’t even notice that all these outlets had opened in this city. Probably because all they seem to be offering are these shoes that my family has been wearing for a couple of centuries now,” a passerby told this scribe.

“And they are selling it at the same rate as Peshawari chappals. No wonder no one’s buying them,” he added.

http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2014/03/15/comment/coucil-of-islamic-ideology-declares-womens-existence-anti-islamic/

Lauren Wolfe Crowdsources Rape, Sex Assault Data

NEW YORK- It will be the year to end rape.That's what Lauren Wolfe wrote in a Jan. 3 op-ed piece for CNN amid international outrage at the fatal gang rape in December 2012 of a medical student in India.

After that story published, Wolfe promoted the hashtag #2013EndRape on Twitter to drive public dialogue about sexualized violence.

Then she tweeted: "What thinkers-writers do you want to hear answer the question: What would you do to end #rape in 2013? #2013EndRape."

"It just took off from there," said Wolfe, who has seen the hashtag used, and continue to be used, countless times.

In September 2011, at 36, Wolfe became director of Women Under Siege, a Women’s Media Center project founded a few years ago by Gloria Steinem to study how rape is used as a weapon of war, with the goal of developing prevention tools that can save and protect girls and women in the future. The project's website, created by Wolfe, celebrated its first anniversary in February.

Women Under Siege started with in-depth analysis of how rape is used as a tool of war in nine conflicts around the world. The project is constantly expanding, now encompassing 12 conflicts globally, including historical ones such as the Holocaust.

Thus far, the first and only live-tracking the project does is in Syria. The Syria project chronicles individual accounts of war-time rape and sexual assault through crowdsourcing, gathering information through broad-reaching social media tools such as Twitter and Facebook.

Through crowdsourcing, and in partnership with Columbia University epidemiologists, reports of sexualized violence are published alongside the date and account of the attack on an interactive map.   

"Pro-regime news source alleges Al-Qaeda in Iraq member raped women in Baba Amr," reads one report from Feb. 28 of this year.

"Man accused of attempting to rape Syrian refugee in Lebanon" reads another Feb. 28 report.

Information is also derived from reports published by the U.N. and groups such as Human Rights Watch.

Real-Time Reports

The principle of real-time data collection during the heat of the conflict is crucial. In the post-conflict period it can be too late to speak to victims who may not have survived.

The Women Under Siege project site also includes a section called Witness for rape survivors of war to share their testimonies.

The White House State Department, the United Kingdom's foreign office and the U.N. have all contacted the project hoping to get a better understanding of how they can help in Syria.

Wolfe said she walked inquirers from these offices and institutions through the data that Women Under Siege has collected and discussed the problems that survivors are having and where the attacks may be occurring.

Since taking this position, Wolfe said she has also been contacted by a couple of major news outlets asking how they can better cover sexualized violence.

"This is incredibly positive and new," she said. "Half the battle with human rights is getting it reported and known."

Wolfe has been energetically contributing to that stream of reporting for many years. As director of Women Under Siege and in her previous jobs, Wolfe has written a torrent of articles and blog posts on the subject of sexual violence for publications that include the Guardian, The Atlantic, CNN and Syria Deeply.

Wolfe was born in Manhattan, N.Y., and had an art background before becoming a "human rights journalist," as she calls it. She graduated from Columbia University's Graduate School of Journalism and has worked everywhere from Architecture Magazine, as her first journalism job, to interning at the Associated Press in Rome to working for Long Island Press, where she noticed herself gravitating towards stories on trauma.

Lara Logan's Influence

Her path to the helm of Women Under Siege began in 2011, with CBS correspondent Lara Logan's attack inTahrir Square in Cairo, Egypt.

At the time Wolfe was working as the senior editor for the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, for whom she wrote a story on Logan's attack.

After that, Wolfe said she began receiving e-mails from colleagues around the world. Wolfe said she spoke to about 50 journalists who told her a personal or colleague's story about assaults on the job. The problem was big and under reported.

Wolfe was ticking. What was not being talked about in the news media? How and why are topics of rape and assault on women being avoided?

Before long she found herself in a TV appearance on CNN International.

With no media training, and growing media interest, Wolfe attended a five-day media training program that the Women's Media Center provides, called "Progressive Women's Voices." Wolfe said mock interviews and exercises with professional journalists during the training teach participants to feel confident in the work they've already done.

After getting to know some of the women in the program, Wolfe was tapped to help launch Women Under Siege online.

A Tool of War

In September 2011, she became founding director of Women Under Siege, which pivots off U.N. resolutions that, in the aftermath of the early 90s wars in Rwanda and Bosnia, recognized that rape is not simply a byproduct of war, but a tool of war; a means of one armed group to defeat another.

Between 250,000 and 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 genocide in Rwanda and between 20,000 and 50,000 women were raped during the conflict in Bosnia in the early 1990s, according to the U.N.

"We are not doing a good job [at educating about sexual assault and rape] because we are not interested in looking at analyses of why," said Wolfe. "The main premise of the whole project is to figure out why sexualized violence happens."

Answers to that can be found in the Conflict section of the website, which offers panels of red-colored maps where sexual violence has been tracked.

Click on Libya, for instance, and read this: "In Libya, rape is seen as an assault on a family and a community's honor, not just a crime against an individual. Therefore, rape was used by Gaddafi's forces to punish those disloyal to the regime."

Click on Egypt and find paragraphs of detail under three headings: To humiliate, To instill fear and stop protests, To intimidate and silence the media.

Maggie Freleng is an editorial assistant for Women's eNews; she lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. Follow her on Twitter @dixiy89.

Indian dead soldier’s wife Priya Semwal joins Army as Lieutenant

Priya Semwal with her daughter Khwaish

Chennai: Normally, a soldier’s widow would end up working in an army canteen but Sharma’s commanding officer Colonel Arun P. Agarwal encouraged her to appear for the SSB exam and become an officer in the Army. “I am grateful to colonel (Agarwal) saab. I am happy to take my husband’s place in serving the nation, said Lieutenant Priya.

Not wishing to remain grieving over her husband’s death in an anti-insurgency operation two years ago, a soldier’s wife passed out of the training academy here to become an army officer.

Dehradun’s Priya Semwal, 27, mother of a seven-year-old Khwaish, braved all odds to go through the gruelling 11-month training at the Officers’ Training Academy to create history in the Indian Army. “Priya’s story is unprecedented. It’s the biggest tribute she could pay to her martyred husband and the greatest service she could render to our nation”, said OTA commandant Lt Gen S. S. Jog.

Naik Amit Sharma had encouraged his wife Priya to continue studies even after marriage even though he himself was just a matriculate. She completed MSc in mathematics and got a teaching degree (BEd) as well and was working as a maths teacher at a private tutorial at Dehradun when Naik Sharma of 14 Rajput Battalion was sent on a counter insurgency operation in Arunachal Pradesh and was klled.